Architect and urban planner Stefano Boeri’s Vertical Forest buildings make the most of the often overlooked and profound contributions of a single tree. Boeri gave a jam-packed 10-minute presentation of the benefits of these leafy skyscrapers on Friday (Dec. 7) as part of the Cities for Tomorrow conference held in New Orleans, a project by The New York Times in collaboration with NOLA Media Group, the publishers of NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. The Vertical Forest prototype was first constructed four years ago in Milan, Italy, where the two apartment buildings also house 21,000 plants and 20 species of birds. Cities cover about 3 percent of the Earth’s land, Boeri said, but are responsible for 70 percent of the world’s energy consumption and 75 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to climate change, which threatens to significantly alter New Orleans and the Southeast, according to a federal National Climate Assessment report released in November. The beauty of incorporating more trees and plant life in urban architecture is that the trees both assist in absorbing carbon dioxide and in producing more oxygen. The process begins by selecting plants that would be suited for the environment of the city. “So we in a way design and build houses for trees,” Boeri said. Boeri has been asked about replicating the idea all over the world. “For sure we didn’t copyright it because we think there are and could be many other architects that can do better than us,” he said. For each… [Read full story]